At the
Sao Paulo
Carnaval, where the parades similar to Rio's are
held just prior on Friday and Saturday night,
the samba group Vai-vai, or Go-go, snagged its 13th championship
title in its 78-year history Tuesday

Funk_Carioca is
one of the first new genres of electronic, street dance
music to have become important outside North America and
Europe. Also known as favela funk or in
Rio-simply "funk" while, elsewhere in the world it is
baile funk. This dance music is derived from
Miami bass. Brazilian funk artists usually compose
two different sets of similar lyrics for each of their
songs, one gentler, more "appropriate" version, and
another harsher, cruder set of lyrics. However, while
they do talk about the violence and crime, the lyrics of
funk carioca songs do not advocate sexual violence.
Additionally, while funk carioca references sexuality
frequently and obviously, it often uses euphemisms
instead of bold statements.

After
2006 and
2007,
LIESA reduced the numbers of schools affiliated with
it by 12. Therefore, in the
Carnaval of 2008, the Access Group will return to
the anterior ascension and fall: in the Access Group A,
one will rise to the Special Group and two will fall to the
Access Group B, then will rise two to Access Group A and
three to Access Group C, then will rise three to
Access Group B and fall three to Access Group D, then
will rise three to Access Group C and descend three to
Access Group E, then will rise three to Access Group D
and the last placed will be eliminated from the Carnaval,
remaining without parading during two or three years to
wait for an avaliation of
AESCRJ, to know if it could display the title of
samba school or to parade hors concurs in its
city of origin.

6.
Estação Primeira de
Mangueira >
VideoParade time per school:minimum of 65 and maximum of 80 minutes

The
video is in special jukebox players by youtube.com and features
the enredo or 2009 theme songs as well as "Best of 2008"
clips and goes back as far as we could find for a
exclusive historical survey.

Imperio Serrano will spend at least a year away from
the elite
in the special league
as neither its innovative introduction of Segway scooters for
its front line commission nor the standout performances
which garnered more highly coveted Gold Standard
Awards than any others samba school was enough to finish
higher than 12th and thus Imperio Serrano
is demoted to the "A" Access league from whence
it came the prior year.

Moving up
among the elite 12 Special Samba Schools is Grêmio Recreativo Escola de
Samba [G.R.E.S] União da Ilha do Governador. In 2009, União da Ilha chose
the theme "Travel is necessary - extraordinary journeys through
worlds familiar and unknown," the presentation took the
championship for carnival Access Group A with 239, 9 points;
allowing the return of the venerable samba school 10 years after
its demotion in 2001 from the Special Group in 2010.

Eduardo Paes: Mayor of Rio de Janeiro,

Key
Olympic games planner

Favela Governance Changes Coming

There is an intense focus within Rio de Janeiro
political community to cement its place as the first City of
South America by successfully hosting the 2014 World Cup
followed by the 3026 Olympic games.

Only two weeks after the city was awarded the
Olympics, beating off the challenge of Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo
a spectacular piece of violence took place when a police
helicopter was shot down killing 2 officers and 10 suspected
gang members were killed as well.

"We never hid our problems during the bid
process. We always told people -- and we are still facing
problems," Paes told the Global Sports Industry Summit in
London.

"Firstly I would like to say that we never hid
our problems throughout the bidding process," said Paes, in a
presentation to the Global Sports Industry Congress in London.

"And we remain confident that the policies we
are introducing to Rio will make the situation much better and
we are working towards developing a safe Games. We staged the
Pan-American Games [in 2007] and it was safe, we have the
Carnival and every New Year's Eve we have two million people on
Copacabana Beach and that is safe. It is the challenge for us but
we believe the city will be much more secure for all of our
citizens. We know there is work to do but the Olympic Games and
the [2014] World Cup is a great opportunity for us to bring the
changes we want to.

"We look at Barcelona as an example. Before
the 1992 Olympics there was one Barcelona and after that there
was another and we want Rio to do the same."

While the city's homicide rate dropped to 33
per 100,000 people last year from 39 per 100,000 the year before
- the lowest for 17 years - it was still considerably higher
than the rates of their competitors for the 2016 Olympics, with
Chicago (18) being the closest.

Help,
the notorious night club prominently located on Avenida
Atlantica in Copacabana was not allowed to stay open for the
2010 February Carnaval season despite a concerted campaign for
just one more month. No final reprieve for Carnaval was
forthcoming as the campaign to help the Help workers ended with
a quick auction and quicker demolition of the famous facility.
The closure is considered a major step in the effort to
change Rio's image as a center for sex tourism.

Help Disco had become world renowned as a
safe place to meet free-lance women ready for sex for a price. A
last delaying tactic to keep its doors open at least till
Carnaval, in mid February didn't work as Rio's Governor
Sergio Cabral gave an ultimatum determining that the place
should be emptied by the weekend or else.

The location will be used to build the new Museum
of Image and Sound (MIS). Demolition to make way for a
facility expected to open well before the 2014 World Cup
began almost immediately after the January 8th 2010 closure.
Governor Cabral, is behind a $35 million dollar plan to demolish
club and replace it with a music-themed museum designed by the
same architecture firm that designed New York’s Lincoln Centre.
US based Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Till the last day, the main attractions of the
club were there as if nothing was happening: on one side the
foreign tourists looking for sex, on the other, prostitutes
looking for money. Help had grown to symbolize all that was
decadent about Rio de Janeiro and there was a strong feeling
that Help Discoteca's reputation would compete with the
attention that is expected in the coming years as the state
invests heavily in the infrastructure to host the 2014 World Cup
and 2016 Olympics.

While operating brothels is outlawed in
Brazil, getting paid or indeed paying for sex is entirely legal.
Promotion of sex tourism is also illegal in Brazil although the
lines and attitudes are gray. As Rio feels the heat of the
brighter global media spotlight, this is clearly not the image
the leadership wishes to project as it seeks to maximize the positive benefits of hosting the
Olympics.

Many are not happy about the change including
the thousands of working girls who frequented the club. “We only
use the club to meet clients. This is not a crime. All we do
here is dance and have fun,” Patricia Alcantara, 30, told the
Rio newspaper O Dia. “With the closure of Club Help
we will have to go on to the streets.”

There have been hundreds of blocos
(local street parades) in Rio carnival in recent years.
Nobody really knew how many. For Carnaval 2010, the prefetura -
Rio's local government - is trying to impose some order
on the chaos by insisting that all the blocos register
officially. The idea is to try to rationalize the
schedule to minimize traffic congestion, and to predict
where and when facilities like mobile toilets might be
necessary.

Questions being asked?

What is the main problem of the blocos of Rio?

The traffic jam that they
cause

Violence

Overcrowding.

Trash left in streets

Should
circuits or parade zones with assigned times be
adopted?

As a result of the new law, 461
blocos have been given permission to parade in Rio
carnaval 2010. The City subsidizes 120 of them.

The decision to force the blocos to
register officially has been controversial - there have
been demonstrations in protest. Registration takes away
some of the anarchic chaos that is the point of
carnival. Some blocos (for example, the one that
incorporates a ferry ride from Rio to Niteroi as part of
their route) felt that they would never get their routes
approved.

Last year 269 blocos registered
officially. This year there are 499 official parades -
some blocos parade more than once. There's 39 in Zona
Oeste (16 last year), 54 in Barra, 55 in Tijuca (21 last
year), 83 in Zona Norte (from 18 last year), 96 in
Centro and 172 in Zona Sul.

"The challenge is to organize the party
without letting it lose the spontaneity. The
block has to jump in wherever you want, the way he sees
fit" - advocates Cláudio Pinheiro, founder of
Banda de Ipanema.

President of the Association of
Residents of Ipanema, Maria Amélia Loureiro
disagrees. She
even likes to see the band go away from the coast.
"This year was a horror. My
suggestion is to take the blocks to the center of Rio,
which is not residential and has wider streets.
There, they can make noise away from homes 24 hours a
day.It would also facilitate the police, who
could keep its men to one place." she told a globo
report

Riotur, the Rio state tourist board,
has been able to make alterations to the dates and
routes of some of the blocos to minimize disruption to
traffic.

Giselle of TD Sounds did a partial schedule of some of
the best known blocos, with dates, times and locations -
you can access this
here .

Geisy Arruda,
who became an instant celebrity in 2009 after being
heckled by hundreds of fellow students because of her
short pink dress, has accepted invitations to
participate with samba groups in Rio de Janeiro and Sao
Paulo. "It will be a dream come true for me," Arruda
said. Arruda made her comments just before giving
a deposition to police who are investigating whether
crimes were committed when a crowd of students harassed
her on Oct. 22 at the University Bandeirante in
Sao Bernardo do Campo,
just outside Sao Paulo. The publicity was amplified by
youtube video. The private university expelled Arruda,
alleging her provocative attitude, not her dress, caused
the near riot. After a national uproar, the university
reinstated her.

Arruda has made the circuit of television talk shows in
Brazil and has said she is enjoying her fame, but she
denied any plans to pose nude for men's magazines.

Arruda, 20, said she will parade for the Leandro
de Itaquera samba school in Sao Paulo
and the Porto da Pedra school in Rio.

"It will be very pretty," she
said when asked what she would be wearing "I'm going to
keep my style. It wouldn't be me if I went out there
with a long dress."

Porto da Pedra's
theme for this year's parade at the Sambadrome will be "What
will I wear?" – addressing the evolution of
fashion.

2009 Rio de Janeiro Samba School Awards

Samba school
Salgueiro edged last year’s champion, Beija-Flor, to win
the Carnival parades championship. Salgueiro’s parade
theme this year focused on the history of the drum
dating back almost to the dawn of man. Some floats, for
example, depicted cavemen atop prehistoric animals. It
was the ninth time Salgueiro claimed the crown, but its
first win since 1993. Beija-Flor had won five of the
previous six competitions.

Salgueiro's parade was simply entitled Drum!, and told
the history of the instrument which all cultures share
and is likely humanity's first instrument first played
in Africa.

2009 Carnaval
Results

1) Salgueiro: 399,0

2) Beija-Flor: 398,0

3) Portela: 397,9

4) Vila Isabel: 397,6

5) Grande Rio: 396,9

6) Mangueira: 396,8

7) Imperatriz Leopoldinense:
396,4

8 ) Viradouro: 395,1

9) Unidos da Tijuca: 393,1

10) Porto da Pedra: 392,4

11) Mocidade Independente de
Padre Miguel: 391,5

12) Império Serrano: 390,7

The top six finishing samba schools of
Rio's fiercely competitive Carnival parades marched the
Parade of champions on the Carnaval after Saturday:
Mangueira, Grande Rio, Vila Isabel, Portela, Beija-Flor
and Salgueiro,

Salgueiro's parade theme centered on
the history of the drum and its importance to music in
various cultures. An army of 4,100 marched alongside
ornate floats featuring prehistoric beasts ridden by
cavemen.

The school scored 399 points out of a
possible 400 to win its ninth title and first since
1993. In second place with 398 points was Beija-Flor,
which had won five of the previous six years and edged
out Salgueiro in 2008.

Salgueiro performed its interpretation
of the history of the drum using eight huge and
beautifully designed floats and 4,200 dancers dressed in
imaginative costumes and
divided into 36 groups.

Best theme song of Group A/Melhor
samba-enredo do Grupo A: Inocentes de Belford
Roxo [source]

Despite the fact that at the beginning
of its parade, Salgueiro had mechanical problems with
some of its floats, the members of the samba school
managed to resolve them in time and make a clean
presentation for the judging panel and the more than
70,000 people crammed into the Sambadrome Monday night.

"It's a huge win. Salgueiro really
needed this victory," said a crying school president
Regina Celia Duran. "Salgueiro is a family, and we
are now all very happy."

In an attempt at a record for
the smallest scrap of clothing ever in a Carnival
parade, model Dani Sperle sported a sparkly
silver headdress, a necklace, matching arm bands, and
nothing else but a 3cm long patch of cloth.

Stars like Brazilian top model
Gisele Bundchen and Hollywood actors Kevin Spacey
and Matthew McConaughey were spotted over two
days of the parades.

Officials reported nearly 720,000
tourists to flock to the city's Carnival and pump $521
million into the local economy.

2009 Access A
Escola de Samba Results

União da Ilha do
Governador

1

239,9

Renascer de
Jacarepaguá

2

239,2

Acadêmicos da
Rocinha

3

239

São Clemente

4

238,5

Estácio de Sá

5

238,1

Acadêmicos de Santa
Cruz

6

237,8

Paraiso do Tuiuti

7

236,8

Império da Tijuca

8

236,3

Inocentes de Belford
Roxo

9

235,9

Caprichosos de
Pilares

10

235,3

On Carnaval Saturday, the Access
league parades in the Sambadromo with the winner
becoming one of the 12 greatest parading samba schools
in the world the following year. With the theme: "What
is travel - Travel through the extraordinary worlds
known and unknown" the school took the crown and will
return to the Special League for the first time since
2001.

Sau Paulo Carnaval 2009

In Brazil's business capital of Sao
Paulo, which holds a less celebrated parade, the
Mocidade Alegre school was announced as the winner on
Tuesday. The top five finishers were: 1)
Mocidade : 359,25 2) Vai-Vai :
358,75 3) Rosas de Ouro : 358,25 4) Gaviões da Fiel : 358,00 5)
Império : 356,50

Viviane Castro
paraded nearly nude in the 2009 Carnaval Saturday parade in Sao
Paulo with the U.S. leader's visage on her left thigh. Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's face was on her opposite
thigh.

Castro's stomach read "for sale" _ a message she said
represented the sale of Brazil's Amazon to the U.S. Many here
fear the U.S. wants to control the resource-rich region.

She wore the same patch in 2008 when she had an infamous
wardrobe malfunction. While most of the top 6
groups appearing in the Parade of Champions had topless dancers,
the judges drew the line at going bottomless, apparently
penalizing perennial special group contender Sao Clemente for
breaking a rule against display of genitalia during its
80-minute parade.

Viviane Castro, a model and dancer, had
lost her original "tapasexo" -- a small triangle 1.6-inch
patch,of glitter used to cover the most intimate parts of her
body. An improvised substitute glued between her legs right
before the show also fell off on the parade strip. [MORE]

Officially Brazil's
drinking laws only allow those over 18 years to drink, but this
is rarely enforced. Beer, wine, and liquor can be bought any day
of the week from grocery stores and delis. Beer is widely sold
through street vendors, bakeries, and refreshment stands.

In the past, when the Roman Catholic
Church complains - as it traditionally does - about the free
handout of millions condoms over Carnaval, you can expect the Minister Gomes
Temporao to respond by stressing that the prevention of
sexually-transmitted diseases “is a public health problem, not a
religious problem”.
Lula demonstrated his
certainty of his government's position on this issue when he
tossed out condoms to Carnival

revelers early Monday during Rio's samba
parades. A presidential spokesman says Silva wanted to show
the importance of Brazil's campaign to prevent the spread of
AIDS.

Brazil is handing out 65
million free condoms this month; that's up from the usual 45
million.

Brazil is buying 1.2 billion condoms in
2010 for its program, making it the world's biggest
government buyer of prophylactics.

The weekend after the traditional Carnaval Tuesday end to
Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro has shaped into Rio's 3rd largest
party weekend after the prior weekend and New Year's week. There
is not only the Parade of Champions at the Sambodromo but on
Sunday After Carnaval is a huge morning parade along Copacabana
Beach. The second and final parade on the Sunday after
Carnaval.
MonoBloco, is a Salvador style trio-electrico parade
which begins close to 9am at Arapodor Point and parades up
Copacabana's Avenida Atlântica to just before the famous
Copacabana Hotel. Then, at about 4pm along Impanema Beach on Av.
Vieira Souto, the gay Queens of Banda Impanema hold
court.